The Assassin Drone, Part 14
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Lucas' flat had never seemed so devoid of life, not even before he'd moved in, when it had been almost completely empty of furniture. It was like returning to his cell after a visit from Aleksander Dmitrovich, his sense of loneliness twice as bad once he'd been removed from the presence of others and sent back to isolation. If only he had a key to Lina's flat and could just sneak in, not disturbing her at all, but simply taking comfort from the fact that she was there. Lucas hadn't wanted to leave the grid and the presence of the people there, but Connie had offered him a lift home, and he'd felt Harry's eye upon him, all but daring him to show his weakness by refusing.
Instead of going straight to bed, as he'd intended, Lucas wandered into his living room instead and turned on the stereo, searching until he found a radio station playing an audio drama. He turned the volume down just until he could hear the voices but no longer make out the individual words, then sank down on the couch and leaned his head back. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine himself at a party, a reception at an embassy perhaps, or the intermission at a theatre, with people speaking in low tones all around him. He dreamed that Lina was there, too, wearing that emerald green dress that brought out the colour of her eyes, and looking brightly at him in anticipation of going home and letting him unzip it.
The pain in his shoulder woke him the next morning, and he twisted himself carefully into what he hoped would be a better position. The ringing in his ears had finally gone away, and when the better position turned out to be worse than the first, he could clearly hear himself groan. Defeated, he sat up, rested a moment, then got to his feet and wandered into the bathroom.
Once he'd cleaned up and struggled into clean clothes, Lucas went into the kitchen and looked in the fridge. The open bottle of champagne was still there, quite undrinkable now, but the sight was enough to give him an idea. After an hour's journey by foot, bus, and tube, he approached Lina's tiny terraced house carrying two bags of shopping, and rang the bell.
It took so long before the intercom beeped that Lucas began to wonder if Lina were even home. He raised his hand to ring again, and just as he did, Lina's voice came through with a crackle. "Lucas? What is it?"
"I've brought breakfast," he said, holding up his shopping bags and smiling up at the security camera.
There was a rattle as Lina drew back the security chain, and then she opened the door. She was wearing a thin silk kimono that was not properly done up and revealed short silk pyjamas underneath. Lucas stared at her flat figure, trying to imagine her pregnant, then realized that Lina had asked, "What happened to your arm?"
"Oh … " Lucas dragged his mind back to the present. "I got shot. Can I come in?"
Lina did up the chain again and moved towards the stairs. "Go through to the kitchen, then, and I'll get dressed."
"You don't have to get dressed because of me," Lucas said. "Come sit down and let's eat."
But Lina went upstairs anyway, and Lucas sighed. In the kitchen, he opened all the cabinets to look for champagne flutes, but didn't find any, and widened his search to include the living room. The room looked so different – so bare, he thought – devoid of all the stuffed animals and knick knacks that Lina had collected over the years. When she'd moved house in February, she'd either given or thrown them all away. She hadn't mentioned where they'd ended up, and Lucas hadn't asked, nor had he asked about any of the photos and portraits she no longer displayed.
Finding the glasses just as he heard her come down the steps, Lucas stepped out into the hall. Lina was wearing the most boring and shapeless combination of sweat pants and oversized T-shirt that Lucas had ever seen. To cover his disappointment, he smiled, and said in Russian, "I hope I didn't wake you up."
"I was awake, I was just not certain if I wanted to get up," Lina replied in English, leading the way into the kitchen. Sliding into one of the chairs, she opened the first bag and, still speaking English, asked, "What did you bring?"
Setting the champagne flutes on the table, Lucas sat down as well and watched as she unpacked the various foods he'd picked out from the shop that morning. Then she opened the second bag, took out the bottle of champagne, and gave him a look that was both wary and quizzical.
"It's for medicinal purposes," Lucas told her with a wink. He tried to pop the cork, but after watching him struggle one-handedly for a moment, Lina reached over and took the bottle from him. Expertly divesting it of the stopper, she poured, and handed him a glass, then took her own and waited.
Lucas raised his flute, looking at her over the rim. Was it just his imagination, or was she truly regarding him with worry and suspicion? He smiled again in an attempt to put her at her ease, and said, "A toast to me. I have survived my first week at work and my first undercover mission since I've been back!"
Lina's wary expression relaxed, and she clinked her glass against his. "To Lucas! Congratulations!"
They sipped, and then Lucas said, "I've got my life back. Well, most of it, anyway. There's just one piece missing, and that's you, Lina. I want you to be my wife again. I want to marry you again. I want to have a son, and maybe even a daughter, too –"
"Lucas," Lina interrupted, and he stopped, hoping just for a moment that she was about to give him the answer he wanted. She bit her lip, then glanced away and murmured, "When I said you should ask me later, I was thinking of months, maybe even years."
"Months?" Lucas repeated, stunned. "Years? Lina, why? Why don't you want to come back to me now?"
Lina sighed. "Because you need so much and I have nothing to give, Lucas. I'm empty!"
Lucas just stared at her, and after a long silence, she went on. "I can act like I'm all right, most of the time, but it's so hard, especially when I'm with you! When I leave you, I am exhausted from pretending! I want someone to … to give me love and help me through the bad times, and you can't, Lucas! You can't!"
"I can love you," Lucas said. "I do love you! I can give you what you need, Lina!"
"No," Lina protested softly. "Oh, Lucas, can't you understand? It's worse when you're there! Then I have to watch everything I say and do so that I don't hurt you and make things worse. Every time I mention Nick, you get that look on your face – yes, that one!"
Lucas hadn't realized he was frowning, and glanced away. He understood exactly what Lina was saying, because he'd also caught himself watching everything he said and did around her, but he hadn't expected to hear it from her, and it hurt. He'd thought … but obviously he'd been wrong.
"Do you have nightmares, Lucas?" Lina asked suddenly.
"Yeah," he admitted. "Sometimes."
"Do you want somebody to be there for you, hold you, and tell you it will be all right, that it was just a dream?" She didn't wait for his answer, but went on. "Well, so do I!"
"We could help each other," Lucas said.
"We're both broken!" Lina shouted.
"I'm not!" Lucas shouted back. "I'm not broken anymore!"
"Then you won't mind waiting for a year or two to see if I even want to get married again!" Lina screeched.
"What?"
Lina lowered her voice. "I said, you won't mind waiting a year or two to see if I even want to get married again."
"Why wouldn‘t you want to get married?" Lucas demanded. "We were married once and it was great, why wouldn't you want it back?"
"Because I've moved on," Lina said. "I've grown away from you and even though I'm still fond of you, I've become a different person. You would still expect me to be like I was eight years ago, but I've changed!"
"How?" Lucas demanded. "How have you changed?"
"You said you wanted a son and maybe even a daughter?" Lina asked. "You haven't asked about my job – I just found out yesterday that I got a promotion."
"A promotion?" Lucas repeated, feeling stupid.
"Yes, a promotion! I wanted children with you, but that didn't work out. And I wanted children with Nick, but when that didn't work out either, I turned my attention to my job, Lucas. I had so many years to get used to the idea of not having kids. Now I've got the promotion that I wanted, and suddenly, you come in and want to change everything! You didn't say congratulations! You never even ask about my job!"
Lucas stared at her, not knowing what to say. It was too late for congratulations now, and she was right, he never asked about her job, but that was because she always told him all about it anyway. Or at least, he'd always thought she told him everything. Obviously, she'd been keeping something back.
"Oh, Lucas." Lina sighed and picked up a bread roll, turning it in her fingers. "How would you like it if your father came back to life and expected you to be the same person you were when you were at university?"
"He wouldn't," Lucas said. "He's really dead, he can't come back. Anyway, Lina, we've had time to get used to each other again. I wouldn't expect you to be the same!"
"You were away for eight years, Lucas! I thought you were really dead, I thought you couldn't come back! And now that you're here, we've seen each other once a week for six months. We haven't had time to get used to each other again."
"It's been seven months," Lucas corrected her. "And whose fault is that, Lina? I wanted to see you every day – and I still do! I wanted to marry you again the first day I saw you – and I still do!"
Lina ripped the bread roll apart with unusual violence. "Do you even know what day it is to-day?"
Lucas hesitated, wondering what he'd missed. "No."
"It's the anniversary of the day I first met Nick," she said, and Lucas groaned audibly. "Lina, don't."
"Oh, yes, I will," she retorted. "It's what I was thinking about when I woke up this morning, when I didn't want to get out of bed. I was remembering how we met. The girls from work had talked me into going to a pub with them and singing karaoke, and Nick was there."
"You sang karaoke?" Lucas asked, trying to focus on something else besides that man's name. Normally Lina was so embarrassed about her lack of singing ability that she never even hummed.
"I'd been drinking," she said. "I might have been a little drunk. So I sang, and Nick came up to me later. He never said a word about my singing, just raved about what a good dancer I was."
Lucas took a large drink of champagne, feeling jealousy and anger rising within him.
"He wasn't much of a dancer, not like you, but he could be so much fun, and I still miss him! I miss what we had together!" Lina exclaimed.
Wanting to vomit, Lucas asked, "Are you telling me this to hurt me?"
"No, I'm telling you this so that you'll understand that I've changed," Lina said. "I think about different things now. You come along, with your breakfast and your champagne, and you want me to go back to being the same girl I was eight years ago. You're talking about kids the way we used to back then, you expect me to love you the same way as I did back then, you think my career is only as important to me as it was back then, you just want to ignore everything that happened in the meantime …"
"Did you love him more than me?" Lucas asked before he could stop himself.
Lina shook her head. "No, I loved him differently, and I grieved differently for both of you."
"So you don't want to marry me again because you're still in love with – with him?" Lucas couldn't bring himself to say the man's name.
"I loved him," Lina said. "I don't know if I'm still in love with him. Sometimes I feel like I hate him, but other times, I miss him. But I think the main reason I don't want to marry you right now is because I've changed over the years. You remember me when I was strong and brave, Lucas, but now I'm weak and I'm scared and I don't want to get hurt again! I thought you were dead. I know that Nick is. Sometimes when I think about loving you again, I'm scared that as soon as I do, you'll get killed and really be dead, and I'll see your body like I saw Nick's! I don't want to have to do any more grieving, Lucas, I just can't go through that again!"
"I won't get killed," Lucas said, but Lina jabbed her finger towards his shoulder. "How close did that bullet come to your heart?"
He looked away, unable to answer, and Lina said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I can't give you what you need. I'm sorry that I want to be with someone who will tell me it's all right to grieve for Nick, who will understand that I really did love him, who won't freeze up and pretend that part of my life never happened. I'm sorry that I want to be with someone who will worry about me, not someone that I have to worry about if he's five minutes late coming home! I'm sorry that I can't be the way you want me, and I'm sorry that I'm selfish and weak and scared!"
"I'm sorry, too," Lucas said, then realized he wasn't sorry at all. He was angry – no, furious – at Lina for rejecting him, at Nick for having come into her life under false pretences, at everything and everybody who had unknowingly conspired to rip him apart from his life and his wife. He even felt a wave of fury directed at Aleksander Dmitrovich for holding him prisoner for so long. Standing up, he threw his champagne flute across the kitchen, where it hit one of the cabinets and shattered in a glorious explosion of glass. Lina cried out and shrank back in her chair as he glared at her, no doubt fearing he might lash out, although he'd never, ever do anything to hurt her, not even after what she had just done to him.
There was nothing more for him to say, and no more reason to stay, and so he simply walked out, ignoring the sound behind him of Lina starting to cry. He was still angry enough to slam the door behind him, hard enough to shake the entire house, and to stomp the entire way to the train station despite the pain that the rough motion caused his shoulder.
Part 15
Lucas' flat had never seemed so devoid of life, not even before he'd moved in, when it had been almost completely empty of furniture. It was like returning to his cell after a visit from Aleksander Dmitrovich, his sense of loneliness twice as bad once he'd been removed from the presence of others and sent back to isolation. If only he had a key to Lina's flat and could just sneak in, not disturbing her at all, but simply taking comfort from the fact that she was there. Lucas hadn't wanted to leave the grid and the presence of the people there, but Connie had offered him a lift home, and he'd felt Harry's eye upon him, all but daring him to show his weakness by refusing.
Instead of going straight to bed, as he'd intended, Lucas wandered into his living room instead and turned on the stereo, searching until he found a radio station playing an audio drama. He turned the volume down just until he could hear the voices but no longer make out the individual words, then sank down on the couch and leaned his head back. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine himself at a party, a reception at an embassy perhaps, or the intermission at a theatre, with people speaking in low tones all around him. He dreamed that Lina was there, too, wearing that emerald green dress that brought out the colour of her eyes, and looking brightly at him in anticipation of going home and letting him unzip it.
The pain in his shoulder woke him the next morning, and he twisted himself carefully into what he hoped would be a better position. The ringing in his ears had finally gone away, and when the better position turned out to be worse than the first, he could clearly hear himself groan. Defeated, he sat up, rested a moment, then got to his feet and wandered into the bathroom.
Once he'd cleaned up and struggled into clean clothes, Lucas went into the kitchen and looked in the fridge. The open bottle of champagne was still there, quite undrinkable now, but the sight was enough to give him an idea. After an hour's journey by foot, bus, and tube, he approached Lina's tiny terraced house carrying two bags of shopping, and rang the bell.
It took so long before the intercom beeped that Lucas began to wonder if Lina were even home. He raised his hand to ring again, and just as he did, Lina's voice came through with a crackle. "Lucas? What is it?"
"I've brought breakfast," he said, holding up his shopping bags and smiling up at the security camera.
There was a rattle as Lina drew back the security chain, and then she opened the door. She was wearing a thin silk kimono that was not properly done up and revealed short silk pyjamas underneath. Lucas stared at her flat figure, trying to imagine her pregnant, then realized that Lina had asked, "What happened to your arm?"
"Oh … " Lucas dragged his mind back to the present. "I got shot. Can I come in?"
Lina did up the chain again and moved towards the stairs. "Go through to the kitchen, then, and I'll get dressed."
"You don't have to get dressed because of me," Lucas said. "Come sit down and let's eat."
But Lina went upstairs anyway, and Lucas sighed. In the kitchen, he opened all the cabinets to look for champagne flutes, but didn't find any, and widened his search to include the living room. The room looked so different – so bare, he thought – devoid of all the stuffed animals and knick knacks that Lina had collected over the years. When she'd moved house in February, she'd either given or thrown them all away. She hadn't mentioned where they'd ended up, and Lucas hadn't asked, nor had he asked about any of the photos and portraits she no longer displayed.
Finding the glasses just as he heard her come down the steps, Lucas stepped out into the hall. Lina was wearing the most boring and shapeless combination of sweat pants and oversized T-shirt that Lucas had ever seen. To cover his disappointment, he smiled, and said in Russian, "I hope I didn't wake you up."
"I was awake, I was just not certain if I wanted to get up," Lina replied in English, leading the way into the kitchen. Sliding into one of the chairs, she opened the first bag and, still speaking English, asked, "What did you bring?"
Setting the champagne flutes on the table, Lucas sat down as well and watched as she unpacked the various foods he'd picked out from the shop that morning. Then she opened the second bag, took out the bottle of champagne, and gave him a look that was both wary and quizzical.
"It's for medicinal purposes," Lucas told her with a wink. He tried to pop the cork, but after watching him struggle one-handedly for a moment, Lina reached over and took the bottle from him. Expertly divesting it of the stopper, she poured, and handed him a glass, then took her own and waited.
Lucas raised his flute, looking at her over the rim. Was it just his imagination, or was she truly regarding him with worry and suspicion? He smiled again in an attempt to put her at her ease, and said, "A toast to me. I have survived my first week at work and my first undercover mission since I've been back!"
Lina's wary expression relaxed, and she clinked her glass against his. "To Lucas! Congratulations!"
They sipped, and then Lucas said, "I've got my life back. Well, most of it, anyway. There's just one piece missing, and that's you, Lina. I want you to be my wife again. I want to marry you again. I want to have a son, and maybe even a daughter, too –"
"Lucas," Lina interrupted, and he stopped, hoping just for a moment that she was about to give him the answer he wanted. She bit her lip, then glanced away and murmured, "When I said you should ask me later, I was thinking of months, maybe even years."
"Months?" Lucas repeated, stunned. "Years? Lina, why? Why don't you want to come back to me now?"
Lina sighed. "Because you need so much and I have nothing to give, Lucas. I'm empty!"
Lucas just stared at her, and after a long silence, she went on. "I can act like I'm all right, most of the time, but it's so hard, especially when I'm with you! When I leave you, I am exhausted from pretending! I want someone to … to give me love and help me through the bad times, and you can't, Lucas! You can't!"
"I can love you," Lucas said. "I do love you! I can give you what you need, Lina!"
"No," Lina protested softly. "Oh, Lucas, can't you understand? It's worse when you're there! Then I have to watch everything I say and do so that I don't hurt you and make things worse. Every time I mention Nick, you get that look on your face – yes, that one!"
Lucas hadn't realized he was frowning, and glanced away. He understood exactly what Lina was saying, because he'd also caught himself watching everything he said and did around her, but he hadn't expected to hear it from her, and it hurt. He'd thought … but obviously he'd been wrong.
"Do you have nightmares, Lucas?" Lina asked suddenly.
"Yeah," he admitted. "Sometimes."
"Do you want somebody to be there for you, hold you, and tell you it will be all right, that it was just a dream?" She didn't wait for his answer, but went on. "Well, so do I!"
"We could help each other," Lucas said.
"We're both broken!" Lina shouted.
"I'm not!" Lucas shouted back. "I'm not broken anymore!"
"Then you won't mind waiting for a year or two to see if I even want to get married again!" Lina screeched.
"What?"
Lina lowered her voice. "I said, you won't mind waiting a year or two to see if I even want to get married again."
"Why wouldn‘t you want to get married?" Lucas demanded. "We were married once and it was great, why wouldn't you want it back?"
"Because I've moved on," Lina said. "I've grown away from you and even though I'm still fond of you, I've become a different person. You would still expect me to be like I was eight years ago, but I've changed!"
"How?" Lucas demanded. "How have you changed?"
"You said you wanted a son and maybe even a daughter?" Lina asked. "You haven't asked about my job – I just found out yesterday that I got a promotion."
"A promotion?" Lucas repeated, feeling stupid.
"Yes, a promotion! I wanted children with you, but that didn't work out. And I wanted children with Nick, but when that didn't work out either, I turned my attention to my job, Lucas. I had so many years to get used to the idea of not having kids. Now I've got the promotion that I wanted, and suddenly, you come in and want to change everything! You didn't say congratulations! You never even ask about my job!"
Lucas stared at her, not knowing what to say. It was too late for congratulations now, and she was right, he never asked about her job, but that was because she always told him all about it anyway. Or at least, he'd always thought she told him everything. Obviously, she'd been keeping something back.
"Oh, Lucas." Lina sighed and picked up a bread roll, turning it in her fingers. "How would you like it if your father came back to life and expected you to be the same person you were when you were at university?"
"He wouldn't," Lucas said. "He's really dead, he can't come back. Anyway, Lina, we've had time to get used to each other again. I wouldn't expect you to be the same!"
"You were away for eight years, Lucas! I thought you were really dead, I thought you couldn't come back! And now that you're here, we've seen each other once a week for six months. We haven't had time to get used to each other again."
"It's been seven months," Lucas corrected her. "And whose fault is that, Lina? I wanted to see you every day – and I still do! I wanted to marry you again the first day I saw you – and I still do!"
Lina ripped the bread roll apart with unusual violence. "Do you even know what day it is to-day?"
Lucas hesitated, wondering what he'd missed. "No."
"It's the anniversary of the day I first met Nick," she said, and Lucas groaned audibly. "Lina, don't."
"Oh, yes, I will," she retorted. "It's what I was thinking about when I woke up this morning, when I didn't want to get out of bed. I was remembering how we met. The girls from work had talked me into going to a pub with them and singing karaoke, and Nick was there."
"You sang karaoke?" Lucas asked, trying to focus on something else besides that man's name. Normally Lina was so embarrassed about her lack of singing ability that she never even hummed.
"I'd been drinking," she said. "I might have been a little drunk. So I sang, and Nick came up to me later. He never said a word about my singing, just raved about what a good dancer I was."
Lucas took a large drink of champagne, feeling jealousy and anger rising within him.
"He wasn't much of a dancer, not like you, but he could be so much fun, and I still miss him! I miss what we had together!" Lina exclaimed.
Wanting to vomit, Lucas asked, "Are you telling me this to hurt me?"
"No, I'm telling you this so that you'll understand that I've changed," Lina said. "I think about different things now. You come along, with your breakfast and your champagne, and you want me to go back to being the same girl I was eight years ago. You're talking about kids the way we used to back then, you expect me to love you the same way as I did back then, you think my career is only as important to me as it was back then, you just want to ignore everything that happened in the meantime …"
"Did you love him more than me?" Lucas asked before he could stop himself.
Lina shook her head. "No, I loved him differently, and I grieved differently for both of you."
"So you don't want to marry me again because you're still in love with – with him?" Lucas couldn't bring himself to say the man's name.
"I loved him," Lina said. "I don't know if I'm still in love with him. Sometimes I feel like I hate him, but other times, I miss him. But I think the main reason I don't want to marry you right now is because I've changed over the years. You remember me when I was strong and brave, Lucas, but now I'm weak and I'm scared and I don't want to get hurt again! I thought you were dead. I know that Nick is. Sometimes when I think about loving you again, I'm scared that as soon as I do, you'll get killed and really be dead, and I'll see your body like I saw Nick's! I don't want to have to do any more grieving, Lucas, I just can't go through that again!"
"I won't get killed," Lucas said, but Lina jabbed her finger towards his shoulder. "How close did that bullet come to your heart?"
He looked away, unable to answer, and Lina said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I can't give you what you need. I'm sorry that I want to be with someone who will tell me it's all right to grieve for Nick, who will understand that I really did love him, who won't freeze up and pretend that part of my life never happened. I'm sorry that I want to be with someone who will worry about me, not someone that I have to worry about if he's five minutes late coming home! I'm sorry that I can't be the way you want me, and I'm sorry that I'm selfish and weak and scared!"
"I'm sorry, too," Lucas said, then realized he wasn't sorry at all. He was angry – no, furious – at Lina for rejecting him, at Nick for having come into her life under false pretences, at everything and everybody who had unknowingly conspired to rip him apart from his life and his wife. He even felt a wave of fury directed at Aleksander Dmitrovich for holding him prisoner for so long. Standing up, he threw his champagne flute across the kitchen, where it hit one of the cabinets and shattered in a glorious explosion of glass. Lina cried out and shrank back in her chair as he glared at her, no doubt fearing he might lash out, although he'd never, ever do anything to hurt her, not even after what she had just done to him.
There was nothing more for him to say, and no more reason to stay, and so he simply walked out, ignoring the sound behind him of Lina starting to cry. He was still angry enough to slam the door behind him, hard enough to shake the entire house, and to stomp the entire way to the train station despite the pain that the rough motion caused his shoulder.
Part 15